The presidential ink was barely dry on a landmark law reining in credit card companies when the business community was forced back on the defensive by congressional zeal to protect consumers.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) fired off his latest salvo the same day the Senate passed the credit card bill, introducing a “shareholder bill of rights” with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). The proposal seeks to give shareholders the power to curb excessive risk-taking and executive compensation that critics say helped push the country into its current economic mess.

“This legislation will give stockholders the ability to apply the emergency brakes the next time the company’s management appears to be driving off the cliff,” Schumer said at a news conference introducing the legislation.

It’s just the latest proposal to protect average Americans from greedy Wall Street fat cats, as the pitch from supporters goes. Opponents see many of the measures as handcuffs that could harm business and shackle recovery.

Democrats in both chambers are pushing for the creation of a financial product safety commission that would make protecting consumers its primary focus — a task that is now shared by at least 10 federal regulators but that is the top priority of none. Supporters propose creating this new entity as part of a major overhaul of the nation’s financial regulations, and they argue that it would help prevent predatory or deceptive financial products and practices from entering the market.

The proposal is not popular with either the financial industry or Republicans, who argue that it creates unnecessary regulatory burdens and makes consumer protection distinct from the protection of a firm’s safety and soundness. But these opponents have powerful adversaries on Capitol Hill: The Senate version of the legislation is co-sponsored by such heavyweight Democrats as Schumer, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

Durbin vows that he’s pushing ahead with two other measures that the financial industry opposes in the name of consumer protection. One would make it easier for merchants to give consumers discounts when they pay with cash, check or debit card rather than a credit card. The credit card industry counters that the retailers are using the consumer angle simply to get a sweetheart deal from Congress and that Durbin’s legislation would actually give merchants free rein to practice deceptive pricing practices.

Durbin said he’s also looking for “the right time and place” to bring another bill to the floor that would put a 36 percent interest rate cap on all consumer lending and count all fees and interest charges against the cap.

On the shareholder rights bill, Schumer said he intends to include it in the massive financial rules rewrite legislation that Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is assembling.

The measure would require all public companies to hold a “say on pay” vote on executive pay — though it would be advisory and not binding. And it would mandate that corporations create board-level risk committees to oversee how they manage risk taking. The bill also would make it easier for shareholders to nominate their own candidates to a corporation’s board of directors by giving shareholders who have held stock for at least two years access to corporate proxy forms.

“During this recession, the leadership at some of the nation’s most renowned companies took too many risks and too much in salary while their shareholders had too little to say,” Schumer said.

The outlook for Schumer’s bill is unclear. Schumer said he’s talking with the White House about the proposal. “I think the White House understands that we need some augmentation of shareholder responsibility,” he said. “We have not gotten into the details with them, but we will. And they know it’s going to be part of regulatory reform.”

But House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who’s taking the lead on the House side, doesn’t think broad corporate governance measures should be part of regulatory reform but thinks compensation issues should because they created perverse incentives that contributed to the meltdown.

“The risk part is compensation. I think the other parts [of corporate governance] are important, but not as part of this,” Frank told POLITICO.

The Schumer-Cantwell legislation has strong support from unions and public pension funds, which say the proxy rights will make boards of directors more accountable to their investors.

“Had these rights been in place years ago, they would have helped protect working families invested in the market through their pension systems and savings plans from the $11 trillion in wealth that has been destroyed in the economic meltdown,” said Richard Ferlauto, director of corporate governance and pension investment with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The business community says the Schumer-Cantwell measure would hurt the competitiveness of American businesses and that a federal mandate doesn’t recognize the unique factors that every business faces.

The Partnership for New York City, a group of 200 top CEOs in New York, wrote in a letter to Schumer that public companies are “aggressively responding” to shareholder concerns on their own. “Why not give public companies the opportunity to work with their shareholders on appropriate reforms, rather than have Congress dictate a one-size-fits-all remedy?” asked Kathryn Wylde, the group’s president and CEO.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce armed itself with a study that it says shows shareholder activism by union pension funds does not improve corporate performance. The study, which the Chamber pre-emptively released before Schumer introduced his bill, was done by Navigant Consulting and examined 166 shareholder proposals at 107 companies that the AFL-CIO identified as key votes. The study concluded that there was no evidence of improved stock market performance in the short or long run at any of the companies.

Schumer’s bill “is not about better corporate governance. It’s about providing a platform for special interest activists,” said Tom Quaadman, executive director for reporting policy and investor opportunity at the U.S. Chamber Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness.

“Do you want your pension fund manager to go out there and increase the pie so that you’re going to be able to retire comfortably, or do you want them out there making political statements?” he asked. “I think you want them out there trying to increase your slice of the pie.”